The first part of the Most Valuable Player analysis for IPL 2010 focused on the batsmen. This one tackles the bowlers.

Bowling points are relatively harder to fix than batting points, since the bowlers have an inversely proportional relationship between their figures and how well they have done. Thus, a bowler has done better if his strike rate and economy rate are lower. The lower the measures, the better the bowler - which is the complete opposite of a batsman, in that while batting the higher the number of runs scored, the strike rate, or the average the better the batsman has done.

Therefore, for bowling a straight multiplication does not work. There are also several more parameters to bowling than batting, with any numbers-based analysis bound to account for wickets taken, economy rate and strike rate.

For wickets taken, the way to assign points is fairly simple - each wicket is worth the tournament average. That is, if across the IPL, the bowlers conceded 3000 runs while taking 100 wickets, each wicket would be worth 30 points. The tournament average for IPL 2010 has been 29.38, making each wicket worth that many points.

The next thing to consider is the strike rate. Just as was done for batting, the relative strike rate is used for bowling, with the relationship inversed.

That is to say, if the tournament's strike rate for bowling has been 20, and Bowler A has picked up 12 wickets in 50 overs bowled, while Bowler B has picked up 15 wickets in 40 overs bowled, their relative strike rates will be as follow:

Bowler A has a strike rate of 25 (300 balls bowled divided by 12 wickets), which would give him a relative strike rate of 0.8 (20 divided by 25), while Bowler B has a strike rate of 16 (240 divided by 15), which would give him a relative strike rate of 1.25 (20 divided by 16). Thus instead of dividing the bowler's individual strike rates by the tournament strike rate, for the Bowling Index, the tournament strike rate is divided by the individual bowlers' strike rates, thus ensuring that the lower the strike rate of a bowler, the higher the value of his relative strike rate.

The same principle is followed for economy rates, with the tournament average economy rate being divided by the bowlers' individual economy rates to arrive at the relative economy rate. With Twenty20's emphasis on giving as few runs as possible, the relative economy rate is then squared, following the same principle as the batting strike rate in part one of the analysis. In IPL 2010, the tournament bowling strike rate has been 22.25, while the tournament economy rate has been 7.92.

The relative economy rate is multiplied by the number of balls bowled for two reasons:

a) It ensures that a part-time bowler who might have bowled just 4-5 overs for very few runs does not get an undue advantage over a regular bowler who has bowled a lot more, under more trying and varying conditions,

and

b) It is of a greater credit to a bowler to sustain a given economy rate for a greater number of overs. For example, if Bowler A has bowled 6 overs and conceded 30 runs, his achievement is not as noteworthy as Bowler B who has bowled 15 overs and conceded 75 runs. They both have the same economy rate (5 runs an over), but Bowler B has been better because he has been able to sustain it longer.

However, this formula remains a tad incomplete, because it sometimes unfairly rewards bowlers who might have been very poor with their economy rates, but got to bowl a lot of overs simply because there weren't other bowlers in the team.

To correct this anomaly an additional parameter was added, the idea for which came from Dr. Srinivas Bhogle, who had done a similar ratings exercise. Many thanks to him for letting me use it in my analysis.

The correction factor is this: Take the number of balls bowled by a bowler, and based on the tournament economy rate, calculate the number of runs he ought to have conceded if he was bowling at par. Thus if Bowler A has bowled 20 overs (120 balls), he ought to have conceded 160 runs (if the tournament economy rate is rounded to 8 runs an over to simplify the example). Let us call this figure the par-runs conceded. Now take the actual amount of runs that Bowler A has conceded and subtract this figure from his par-runs conceded. Therefore if Bowler A has bowled his 20 overs for just 140 runs, he would get +20 points, while if he has been expensive and conceded 190 runs from his 20 overs, he would get -30 points.

This correction factor goes a large way towards making the Bowling Points more comprehensive. All that remains is to multiply the bowling points of each bowler by a constant, so that they are on the same scale as the batting points.

The list of the top bowlers in IPL 2010 is:

Rank

Player

Team

Overs

Wickets

Strike Rate

Econ. Rate

Bowling Points

1

Pragyan Ojha

Deccan

58.5

21

16.81

7.29

776.53

2

Anil Kumble

Bangalore

63.2

17

22.35

6.43

714.86

3

Amit Mishra

Delhi

53

17

18.71

6.85

657.98

4

Harbhajan Singh

Mumbai

53.3

17

18.88

7.05

636.38

5

R Ashwin

Chennai

48

13

22.15

6.10

584.39

6

Muralitharan

Chennai

48

15

19.20

6.85

578.70

7

Dale Steyn

Bangalore

59

15

23.60

6.88

578.36

8

Kieron Pollard

Mumbai

37

15

14.80

7.41

571.92

9

Lasith Malinga

Mumbai

49

15

19.60

7.02

561.67

10

Ryan Harris

Deccan

30.4

14

13.14

7.60

553.93

11

Zaheer Khan

Mumbai

48.2

15

19.33

7.78

498.07

12

Vinay Kumar

Bangalore

46.1

16

17.31

8.58

495.18

13

Doug Bollinger

Chennai

31

12

15.50

6.68

492.95

14

Andrew Symonds

Deccan

53

12

26.50

7.02

457.90

15

Shadab Jakati

Chennai

38

13

17.54

7.66

451.45

16

Irfan Pathan

Punjab

46.2

15

18.53

9.19

413.51

17

RP Singh

Deccan

42

14

18.00

8.81

412.54

18

Piyush Chawla

Punjab

49

12

24.50

7.49

409.76

19

Chaminda Vaas

Deccan

22

9

14.67

6.32

393.60

20

Siddharth Trivedi

Rajasthan

35.3

11

19.36

7.32

392.31

21

Murali Karthik

Kolkata

39

9

26.00

6.49

385.89

The first thing immediately apparent from the table is that spinners have ruled the roost, with all top-6 spots going to them. Dale Steyn is the highest ranked pacer at Number 7, though Ryan Harris and Doug Bollinger could have potentially gotten many more points if they had been available throughout the tournament instead of just in the latter half.

The list included 21 names, because Kolkata's highest ranked bowler - Murali Karthik - makes an appearance at that number. The lack of a strike bowling option for Kolkata has been pointed at before in this article, but it comes out starkly when an analysis is done.

In passing, Anil Kumble showed once again, just what India took for granted when he was playing, and what they are missing when he's retired, with his outstanding show.

Pragyan Ojha is the deserving table-topper though, and the table above merely reinforces the fact that the selectors erred big time by selecting Piyush Chawla for the T20 WC instead of Ojha, Mishra or even R Ashwin.

Part 3 of the analysis will consolidate the Batting and Bowling points, add the fielding points, and arrive at the final list of the Most Valuable Player of IPL 2010.